


Tuesday Morning Rush

by MickyRC



Series: Ineffable Husbands AU Week Meet Cutes [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Barista Aziraphale, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands AU Week, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sleep Deprived Customer Crowley, poor Newt doesn't know what's going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26568838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MickyRC/pseuds/MickyRC
Summary: “Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said to himself. The man was pretty. The man wasreallypretty, and polite, and rather sweet. Aziraphale was already thinking about whether he’d be back tomorrow. How many coffee orders was it considered appropriate to wait before writing one’s number on the cup?It's just another morning behind the counter at Eastern Gate Coffee and Tea for Aziraphale--until a very handsome, very sleep deprived redhead comes through the door.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Husbands AU Week Meet Cutes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932385
Comments: 17
Kudos: 193
Collections: GO Meet-Cutes





	Tuesday Morning Rush

**Author's Note:**

> Meet cute #1 for the Ineffable Husbands AU Week: coffee shop!

“Anthony!”

Aziraphale set the paper cup on the serving counter and turned back to the kettle screaming at him. It was nine a.m. on a Tuesday, and everyone in London wanted their morning caffeine fix. Michael was handling the ordering station like the pro she was, and Uriel was making good use of their patented “hurry up and leave” look to keep the shop’s limited seating in rotation, but that left Aziraphale to man the coffee making on his own.

Not that he really minded it. He liked his job. It was quiet, sort of. No matter how loud the shop got, he’d learned to tune it out and go about his business behind the counter. Get an order, check off all the steps to make the drink, pop the cup up on the counter and shout the name on the cup. It didn’t take much thought anymore. He could run a Tuesday rush in his sleep by now.

“Er, excuse me? Sorry?” Aziraphale turned away from the milk steamer and nearly ran into a boy in an impressively stained apron. ‘Newt,’ his name tag read. Aziraphale wondered if that was the result of a prank someone was playing on the poor boy or just a name even less fortunate than his own.

“You’re the new lad, aren’t you?” Aziraphale asked. He always thought it was important to be polite, regardless of how many people were crowding the shop.

“I am, yeah, just started today. I’m meant to be barista…ing?”

Aziraphale looked Newt up and down. Besides the apron stains, his shirt buttons were askew, his hair was already escaping his cap, and there were no less than six plasters on his fingers and hands. Aziraphale glanced at the line of waiting customers. He looked back at Newt. “Right. Well, if you could just stand there, by the espresso machine—”

“Here?”

“That’s the steamer dear boy—no, no, that’ll do fine, just stand right there.” Aziraphale assessed his new co-worker, now standing squished between the back counter and the wall. “Perfect.” A kettle started screaming, and Aziraphale threw himself back into his coffee making, darting around the little work space with ease.

“Tracy!” he called as he plopped the next drink on the counter. A boisterous shop regular in an orange wig bustled forward, and Aziraphale waved as she took her drink. Then he stopped, and frowned at the other cup still sat on the counter. He read the name on it. “Anthony!” he shouted again. Probably the man just hadn’t heard him the first time. It  _ had  _ gotten quite loud.

Aziraphale scanned the room. No one came forward to claim the cup. “Oh, dear,” he tsked. Some poor soul must’ve gotten pinned at the back of the crowd, or stuck on a distracting phone call. He glanced at Newt, still standing nervously in his assigned corner. “Mind your ears.”

“Huh?”

“Your ears, dear, cover them.”

Looking even more terrified than before, Newt did as he was told. Aziraphale took a deep, strong breath.

“ANTHONY!” The chatter of the shop hushed while Aziraphale’s shout rang through the room. He’d enjoyed theater in high school. Still had the booming stage voice to prove it. The noise picked up again a moment later, but Aziraphale noticed a tad smugly that a man in a soft grey beanie sitting in the back corner had startled and stumbled to his feet. He walked sheepishly up to the counter, smothering a yawn.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“No trouble,” Aziraphale said as he pushed the cup toward its owner. Anthony looked up, and Aziraphale saw deep circles under his eyes and a furrow down his brow. “Are you quite alright?”

Anthony tried to smile, but was defeated by another yawn. “Yeah, great, perfect. Totally fine, me.” He reached for his coffee and missed, jambing his fingers into the counter.

“Are… are you sure?” Aziraphale asked.

“Nope,” he popped. “But I gotta get to work, so. Y’know.”

Aziraphale did. He was an early bird by nature, but the early mornings and lack of sleep hit him sometimes, too. “Here,” he offered, handing over the cup. “Drink that up, take a nap if you can sneak one, and I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

Anthony took the cup. He was staring at Aziraphale. “...thanks,” he said. “Been, uh. Been a rough week, I guess.”

Aziraphale was just about to commiserate when Anthony reached up to scratch his neck and knocked his beanie off kilter. He pulled the hat off, and suddenly there was a cascade of fire red curls tumbling down his back. Aziraphale stared. His mouth may have been open. He wasn’t sure, and couldn’t seem to care. The whole thing had seemed to be in slow motion, like something out of a movie.

Anthony was quick to bundle his hair back into a knot and tuck it into his hat again, snapping Aziraphale out of his head. But he couldn’t seem to leave the counter, despite the alarms and timers starting to go off behind him. He couldn’t make himself look away from Anthony’s face, his cheekbones, his beautiful golden-hazel eyes, made even brighter by the shadows under them, the little curve of his lips, the—grimace?

Anthony was taking a second sip of his coffee, a look of pain on his face. Aziraphale’s heart plummeted. “Sorry,” he said hurriedly, half reaching for the cup. “Is it wrong? I must’ve messed up the order, I’m so sorry, I promise this doesn’t happen—well, it, it does, it happened to you, but it won’t happen again I promise pleasedon’tnotcomebackI’msorry.”

Anthony blinked at him. Aziraphale could practically see the sleep clogged gears in his mind trying to parse what he’d said before he gave up with a shake of his head. “No, sorry, ‘s my fault. Could I… sorry, ‘s there any chance I could have just a little bit of milk in this?”

Aziraphale’s face went hot. “Yes,” he said quickly, snatching the cup away from Anthony so fast the man was left blinking at his empty hand. “I really am so sorry, your order said black coffee so that’s what I made, there must’ve been a mistake at the register or in the system—”

“Er. No, actually.” Anthony said sheepishly. He scratched the back of his neck again, and Aziraphale found himself slightly disappointed when his hat stayed in place. “I, um. I did order black coffee. Just. I don’t actually like it.”

“Oh! Oh,” Aziraphale said. The panic in his chest started to ease, replaced by a much more welcome feeling of amusement. He passed Anthony’s no-longer-black coffee back to him. “Have a reputation to uphold?” he teased.

To his delight, Anthony smiled. “That and a debilitating need to avoid long interactions with cashiers.” Aziraphale laughed. The tips of Anthony’s ears went red, but he looked pleased. Aziraphale wondered what that blush might look like with his hair hanging loose around his face.

Then the timer on the kettle right next to him went off, and they both jumped. Aziraphale glanced at the growing list of incoming orders, and Anthony checked the time on his phone. “I gotta run,” Anthony said, sounding disappointed in a way that went right to Aziraphale’s heart.

“I need to get back to work, too. But, um. I’ll see you another time?”

Anthony grinned. “Yeah. Think I might become a regular customer here.”

“Oh?”

“Well, y’know. They’ve got great service.”

Aziraphale thought he might start floating off the ground, he felt so giddy. Then Anthony tried to take another sip of coffee and very nearly missed his mouth entirely. “Oh, dear. Here.” Aziraphale passed him a large fistful of napkins.

Anthony blinked at them for a moment before his sleep deprived brain figured out where it was again. “Right,” he said. “Thanks. No more all-nighters, I’m getting too old for this.” He snapped open a pair of sunglasses and jammed the napkins into his pocket. “Thanks,” he said again, and flashed Aziraphale an exhausted but grateful smile before he took off. Aziraphale watched him go, wide eyed as he pushed through the crowd, wincing as he nearly tripped over air on his way out the door. The wind outside pulled a stray lock of red hair out of his hat as he turned down the sidewalk, and Aziraphale watched it bounce next to his ear until Anthony was out of sight.

“Oh, dear,” he said to himself. The man was pretty. The man was  _ really  _ pretty, and polite, and really rather sweet. Aziraphale was already thinking about whether he’d be back tomorrow. How many coffee orders was it considered appropriate to wait before writing one’s number on the cup?

“Er,” a voice said behind him. “Sorry, is there something I should be doing?”

Aziraphale blinked and snapped back into action. “No!” he said cheerfully. “No, my dear Newt, you are doing wonderfully just there. You keep doing as you are, and I’ll handle this.” He popped a cup out of the rack and swung it towards the coffee makers with ease, slapping on his work smile and getting back to business.

He didn’t stop thinking about him, though. It was ridiculous, falling into a crush so fast, but the heart would do as it would. Aziraphale let out a happy wiggle when he remembered he was working the same shift the next day. If he was lucky, he’d get a chance for a real conversation with Anthony tomorrow. Until then, he would make the coffee, and boil the tea, and reassure Newt that he was perfectly fine standing just there, really, just hold on till things slowed down a bit, and daydream about fire red hair as he worked.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also yelling on tumblr [over here!](https://one-with-the-floor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
